Thermaltake View 71 Tempered Glass Edition Review

Thermaltake View 71 Tempered Glass Edition Review

It's big, it's glass, but don't worry it is tempered in the event should you decide to take a header into it in the middle of the night. It's Thermaltake's View 71 Full Tower Chassis and if you want to see inside your case and show off all those Frag-Harder lights, the View 71 maybe just be your ticket. But how good of a case is it?

This case looks sweet. I have a Corsair Crystal X570 tempered glass case, and absolutely love it. As long as you've got no problem taking the panels off every once in awhile and cleaning them with Windex, tempered glass cases are really nice.

You say it looks gorgeous, but I can't help but notice that the only exterior shot you have of it is in the plastic wrapping. All the other exterior shots are stock photos from Tt.
Is the case not very photogenic without some outlandishly expensive camera that can handle that tempered glass on black interior?

MrDeaf said:

You say it looks gorgeous, but I can't help but notice that the only exterior shot you have of it is in the plastic wrapping. All the other exterior shots are stock photos from Tt.
Is the case not very photogenic without some outlandishly expensive camera that can handle that tempered glass on black interior?

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The case is gorgeous. Getting a picture of it is a huge challenge. We decided against posting our pics as those made it look "bad." We are setting up to try and take better pictures going forward.

I still have opinion of not cooling for things like vid and MB as with all the glass there no way to have airflow from side panels and even front with only 1/2" seems limited to me (I think you need like 1" to not impede airflow of front fans).

These cases do look good, I just feel airflow is not as good, maybe I am wrong.

PS: I am coming from use of Corsair 500R case, so its pretty airy.

I agree.
The write up was OK.
But for cases your really need to look at a ton of pictures to get an idea of the outside and inside, how the inside allows you to work, where the radiators can go, all that stuff.
You couild always explain how the photography didn't do the case justice, but I can't really get anything out of this review.

I bought a 932HAF cooler master case last year and recently installed a 110i in it. Never buying one again cause it clearly didn't have AIO in mind and I lacked the forethought of upgrading to water cooling eventually.
This case looks like a strong candidate for a replacement tower. I enjoyed the review, very thorough! I should get a riser cable to show off the lightning Z

Jrock91 said:

I bought a 932HAF cooler master case last year and recently installed a 110i in it. Never buying one again cause it clearly didn't have AIO in mind and I lacked the forethought of upgrading to water cooling eventually.
This case looks like a strong candidate for a replacement tower. I enjoyed the review, very thorough! I should get a riser cable to show off the lightning Z

Click to expand...

The 932HAF is a old case design that was made before aio came out. I had the same issue with my old HAF X. I had to zip tie the radiator to the top cause none of the holes would line up. Yeah I could of drilled new holes for it but I was being lazy.

Hi all - I'm the article's author and am happy to reply to any questions you might have about the case.

MrDeaf said:

You say it looks gorgeous, but I can't help but notice that the only exterior shot you have of it is in the plastic wrapping. All the other exterior shots are stock photos from Tt.
Is the case not very photogenic without some outlandishly expensive camera that can handle that tempered glass on black interior?

Click to expand...

Kyle and I discussed this and simply put, it was very difficult to take good-looking pictures of the case because the tempered glass panels are highly reflective. Also, the case is huge and heavy. Moving forward, I'm going to take pictures in my lab at work rather than my lab at home so we should be able to provide more high-quality exterior shots.

Jrock91 said:

I bought a 932HAF cooler master case last year and recently installed a 110i in it. Never buying one again cause it clearly didn't have AIO in mind and I lacked the forethought of upgrading to water cooling eventually.
This case looks like a strong candidate for a replacement tower. I enjoyed the review, very thorough! I should get a riser cable to show off the lightning Z

Click to expand...

Having worked with the 932HAF, this one will be MUCH easier to build in, especially if you're going to be using a water cooler or two. Or three... (This case is very, very capacious.)

I had a Tsunami Dream back in the day too:
https://i.imgur.com/WoWVbyr.jpg

Can you squeeze a radiator between the drive cages and front fans?

So I learned a few things about this case after working with it. First, it's a real pain to get 7 hard drives going in this case. The rear mounting tray makes routing the cables for the drive cages tough. If the SATA cables I'm using weren't super thin 90° cords I'm not sure how it would have gone.

The other thing I figured out is a GTS radiator will fit in the front between the drive cages. There is space for a slightly thicker radiator, but the EKWB normal thickness rads are just sightly too thick.

My case had a huge scratch in the glass hidden under the plastic film, hopefully on Monday I can get ahold of someone at thermaltake to see about a replacement.

Ugly and Bulky.

Geno750 said:

So I learned a few things about this case after working with it. First, it's a real pain to get 7 hard drives going in this case. The rear mounting tray makes routing the cables for the drive cages tough. If the SATA cables I'm using weren't super thin 90° cords I'm not sure how it would have gone.

The other thing I figured out is a GTS radiator will fit in the front between the drive cages. There is space for a slightly thicker radiator, but the EKWB normal thickness rads are just sightly too thick.

My case had a huge scratch in the glass hidden under the plastic film, hopefully on Monday I can get ahold of someone at thermaltake to see about a replacement.

Click to expand...

Why didn't you check everything before you expect it!, now will cost you for the glass door from Thermaltake, 7 HDD? wow wouldn't it be better to have two/three 4tb? IMO

AORUS said:

Why didn't you check everything before you expect it!, now will cost you for the glass door from Thermaltake, 7 HDD? wow wouldn't it be better to have two/three 4tb? IMO

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I looked the case over but all the glass is protected by plastic film which hid the scratch. I left the film in place until I was done. The system has 10 drives total, 3x512GB nvme drives on the motherboard, 6x8TB WD reds in raid 5 with a Dell Perc710p controller, and a 1TB SSD. It runs 24x7 as a Plex server for my friends and family (6-9 transcodes going at a time) while serving as my desktop.

Also, I sent that picture to thermaltake and they're sending me a free replacement door.

I just did a build with the V71 TG/RGB

Heres my quick thoughts:

THE BAD:

-Like the V51, Thermaltake is taking WIDE leeway with saying these cases will accept E-ATX mobos. While it's true the mobo will technically fit onto the preinstalled mounts, in both cases it leaves a lot to be desired. E-ATX boards are too wide by about 1", so you totally lose functionality of the 2 x rubber grommet cable pass-throughs to the right (where you would normally pass your 24 x pin mobo power cable and your HD sata cables through to the backside of the case). The right edge of the board completely covers them. With the V71, I had to take a dremel cutting tool and cut some of the useless metal "ladder work" to the right of the covered up grommets to make my own cable pass-throughs to the back.

-I never understood why Thermaltake has done this with both of their cases that I've owned (The V51 had this problem as well): There is a metal "L-shaped" bracket that is not removable (it's fused with the motherboard tray) that is designed to "press down" on the top of your PSU, I guess as added downward mounting pressure. I could see this being only slightly useful in the event you are buying a pre-made OEM PC with a Termaltake case. In the event the shippers drop or are rough with your box the, downward pressure of the metal L-bracket would help keep the PSU more securely in place than just the typical 4 x small metal screws in back that are normally used to secure it.

But with any high end mobo that has the extra 4 x pin molex power connector on the bottom to provide additional power specifically to the GPUs, that metal bracket prevents you from attaching the power cable. It completely conflicts with the molex plug and there is no way at all to connect it. What I had to do in both cases was to take my Dremel cutting wheel and physically cut off this bracket (again, its part of the mobo tray so you cant just unscrew it).

Both these issues in my mind make the V71 (and the V51 I had before it) NOT officially E-ATX compatible but for some Thermaltake insists they are.

THE GOOD:

+It's all about the glass! The thing looks great and my attached quick cell phone pics dont do the visual impressiveness justice. Personally (though this COULD go in the "THE MEH" section below) I like the "back" (ie right) side tempered glass closing door. Not because of the looks, the back of my case is a MESS but I mount that side against a wall so I dont see it. But it does provide a lot of "depth" for very easily containing a LOT of cables, fan controllers, RGB remote receivers, etc. The case already has about a full 1" of depth for cable management back there, and the glass doors on both sides do NOT close flush. They have thick rubber stoppers almost .5" thick that give you even more room because neither door closes even close to flush with the side of the case. This would NOT be good for noise if you are running high RPM fans (I went for near total silence and use the ASUS BIOS to stop all my fans except for 2 x on one of the radiators) except for high CPU temps. Again, all I can say is GLASS GLASS GLASS!!

THE MEH:

+/-In the V51, I was able to comfortably mount all 3 x of my radiators and have them "fully fanned" on the inside. But in the V71, the top of the rear 120mm exhaust port rad conflicts with the rear of the top 360mm rad, and I had to remove a fan on the top rad to make it work. Thermaltake isnt really good in its instructions about address more than one radiator builds. They say stuff like "supports up to a 420mm rad" for the various mounting positions, but they never tell you what combinations of multiple radiators will fit. I have 3 x in this case, a 360 on top, a 420 in front, and a 120 in the rear.

+/-Its HEAVY. I'm guessing its 60lbs with my system (my setup holds 1.25 L of water)

+/- Noise. Mine is almost dead silent BUT like I said, I have the ASUS Q-Fan BIOS option set to totally stop all the fans except the 2 x thin model fans mounted on the bottom of the top rad (exhaust blowing up wards) Those are the only 2 x fans on (and theyre low RPM, 800 RPM) until my CPU hits 55 C, then the multitude of other fans start to spool up slowly. The only time any of the other fans are ever on is during gaming and then I have my desktop speakers wall-shaking loud so it doesnt matter. For movie and desktop use, its totally silent and the only noise making thing in the PC room is my 3 x 7200RPM hard drive external USB box. But if you were going to build a totally air cooled system, especially with factory cooling on Titan Xps or 1080 Tis..... noise would be an issue with this case. It doesnt have the looks of totally "open air" like the P5 or In Win exotic cases, but with the almost 3/4" gaps on both side panels and the top and front glass.... for noise purposes it may as well be an open-air case.

Conclusion:

I LOVE the looks. Thermaltake (to me anyway, I know its subjective) is one of those companies than can make a really snazzy looking case without breaking the bank like an In-Win S-Frame. BUT they should REALLY make that silly L-shaped PSU pressure bracket easily removable for guys who need to connect the bottom MOBO molex power plug. And, either they should move the cable passthrough cuts out 1" to the right so people who mount E-ATX boards can actually use them or come out with a full disclaimer "If using an E-ATX mobo you will lose access to the right side cable pass through grommets".

PICS:

(sorry, the pic URLs didnt copy over well from my post on Overclock.net Just did a quick file dump):

about to build in this case. Due the gaps in the case, how did you guys handle fan layout?

I am thinking about having 3x120mm (front) and 2x140mm (top) blowing in and 1x140mm (back) blowing out. Front and top will be on radiators.

Also, ill be removing the hdd cage for pump res combo, how do 3.5 hdd handle little airflow on the backside?